My poetry and photography and thoughts on living at the edge of entropy.

Archive for October, 2008

Yesterday night mom, papa and I went to the dandiya/ raasget together for navratri. As we entered,they told us to put our names and numbers on ourtickets for a raffle. I was writing them out, andthought I've never one any of these types of thingsin my life, but have a feeling one of us will wintonight. So I wrote the names very legibly, thenentered the cell numbers, put all 3 of our names onthe tickets, and handed them over. Then forgot aboutit. I danced some, mom socialized, dad sat on thesidelines and watched, then we left very earlybecause papa got overwhelmed and teary eyed, he'sbeen very depressed lately and the commotion andcrowd turned out to be too much for him. I saidlet's go home, no big deal, we can come back nextweekend, so we left early before the aarti. Todayfriend of my mom's told her we missed seeing youlater and your husband won the raffle and they werecalling his name for a long time and they'll callyou. I'm not surprised at all that my dad won that raffle.I knewone of us would.These experiences are beginning to get veryeerie.No, it's not eerie actually. I used the wrong word.There is a little bit of fear inside actually withthese experiences. The same fear I felt in that dreamof the Buddha statue opening one eye, fear of a realmthat feels new (even though it isn't, it's as old asLife itself), it feels new, and therefore a fear ofthe new, the unknown.I have also felt this fear as a child, in moments of astrong connection to the Universe, of "wanting"moksha, and then a feeling that I'm actually "getting"there, and then a fear, a "I asked for this and I'mgetting it and is this what I really even want? No,maybe I'll retrieve into the mundane, the ordinary."The experiences continue. I was thinking about mykathak teacher from India who came here in the summerof '96 and wondering where she is, and I look her up,and find out she's been coming to Seattle every summerto teach, and she's performing with her students inSeattle next weekend. This woman is a professor inDelhi and lives there. I thought of her after years,and she's performing 1 week away, 3 hours from me,just enough time for me to make plans to go meet andreconnect with her, maybe.I emailed an author I'm very fond of, out of the blue,3-4 years ago, Irene Vilar, found her email addressonline. She wrote back. We've exchanged a few emails.I told her of my depression as a teenager and how herwriting had helped me, so she got worried about me. Iwrote her back a few months ago, she responded, but Ididn't write back - inertia. I was just thinking, Ishould let Irene know that I'm fine, why let her worryabout my suffering, and got another email from her -THAT SAME INSTANT (after months). She said, she hadbeen thinking of me, hoping I'm doing OK.I can make myself fall sick, at times. I have toldpeople that I'm feeling like I'm catching something, afever, not feeling well, when in fact I've beenfeeling completely fine (I have said it to gather someTLC, some attention, pity?) - Yes, I've lied. But 24hours later, I'm actually sick and have a fever. Thepretend becomes real. This has happened more thanonce. If I claim I have a stomach ache, it becomes astomach ache, if I claim I have a fever, it becomes afever, I can choose. I don't lie about being sickanymore. Manipulating people that way was a bad ideato begin with.The fear rises and dissolves. When it dissolves, Iwant to merge into the ocean, a flame thatextinguishes, and I'm willing to see clearly, withdeeper and deeper mindfulness, into my feelings,thoughts, desires, conditioning, lives, karma, thecycles. I will merge, I will disappear.And if he is intuitive the way I am, and I know he
is, then he will know what I'm saying here, he ishearing what is said and also what is left unsaid.

Did the Buddha say that to reach Nirvana, one has to take on the life of a renunciate and become a monk or nun? That is, is it possible, according to the Buddha, to reach Nirvana, be enlightened, while living the life of a householder? I do understand that after one is enlightened, one may live as a householder, or a renunciate, or neither… But I wish to know about the life of a person who is seeking enlightenment and his/her greatest desire is to seek an end to suffering? I imagine the answer is to reach Nirvana, one may either be a householder or a renunciate. Once you reach the other side of the shore, you have no need for the boat. Whether that boat was that of a householder, or a nun, or something else altogether. Yet, I’d like to get this knowledge from those who are experienced and speak with mindfulness.

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A Quote to Ponder

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations. Kahlil Gibran